


You're Still Young (That's Your Fault)

by wildpeace



Series: The Mummy/Daddy/Baby 'Verse [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Family of Choice, Father's Day, Found Family, Gen, I miss Tripp, Orphans, Skye is an excellent bestie, Thor owns a bakery, because seriously how cute would he be baking cakes?, everyone lives in a happy little town, exists in the mummy/daddy/baby universe, sequel to 'Room in the Inn'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:12:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildpeace/pseuds/wildpeace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One special day.  One $100 comic.  One week of chores.  One best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Still Young (That's Your Fault)

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to 'Room in the Inn'. Thanks for all the wonderful comments and kudos on the original. I just wanted to play in this universe a little more and Fathers' Day seemed like a perfect fluffy opportunity to do so. 
> 
> Also thanks to my Chickee. *blows kisses*

The date seems to creep up on her without warning. Or rather, she sees the cards and things jostling for space in the supermarket aisles, but doesn't take much notice of it. She's never really had a reason to, before now. It takes her literally crashing into a popup display of neckties - not quite confident with the brakes on her new bike yet, a combined Christmas and Chinese New Year gift from Grandma Lian - to figure it out. When she does, it brings her running, flat out and breathless, to bang on Tripp's front door.

"Did you know it's Fathers' Day next week?"

Tripp has his toothbrush hanging out of the corner of his mouth and a confused look on his face. "Uh...yeah?" he murmurs wandering into the downstairs bathroom to spit out his mouthful of toothpaste, knowing she will follow him. She hops up onto the counter, watching him scrub his face clean, and then laughs as he flicks water from his fingertips at her face. Drying himself off with a towel, he looks at her curiously. "Did you not know?"

She turns away from him then, sliding off the counter and wandering into the hallway. He knows something is bothering her because her hands are restless and fiddle with the buttons on her plaid flannel shirt. He doesn't press. He knows Skye - he knows it will only be a matter of seconds before she - 

"I've never...it's my first one."

The sad thing, really, is that she looks guilty about it, as though never having had a person, a father, to celebrate with before is somehow her own fault. 

"Skye," he starts to comfort her, but she shakes her head, brushing off the words that he doesn't even get a chance to say.

"Here's the thing. I got someone now. Phil and May and me...we're sticking together. They told me and I trust them."

Grabbing his hoody from the coat rack, Tripp pulls it down over his head, pushing the hood off his face. It’s bright blue and has his soccer team’s name scrawled across the front. Skye knows – from experience – it’s also the softest sweatshirt he has. "So what's the issue?"

Reaching into her pocket, Skye pulls out three crumpled dollar bills and a pair of nickels. "I can't get much with this. Not what I want."

"What do you want?"

Grinning, she reaches out and takes him by the hand. "I've got a great idea. Can you come with?"

Tangling their fingers together, he smiles back, his teeth bright and white. "With you? Always."

*

They bike into town – it only takes about fifteen minutes and they’re always careful on the main roads and Skye knows May would ground her six ways from Sunday if she was caught without her helmet so she always wears it – to a little side street next to Thor’s Bakery. 

The Excelsior comic book shop is full of bright printed posters and clothes and games and books, but there is one that stands out to Skye. In the middle of the window display, still carefully sealed in its plastic sleeve, is a comic book: Captain America #1. 

“Phil’s copy got water damaged when the bathroom flooded a few years ago, May told me. Before they had it redone. He looks at them on ebay every now and then, but I don’t think he wants to spend that much money on himself.”

Peering in next to her, Trip lets out a low whistle between his teeth. “Skye, that’s $100. You just told me you’re broke.”

“Broke, but determined,” she counters. Then, fishing her measly savings out of her pocket, she nods her head, as though with a plan. “First of all, investment. We invest this in a couple of cupcakes and we strategise.”

*

Thor’s Bakery is a bright, airy space that always smells like just-cooked bread and spices. Its fair-isle patterned cushions and honey-coloured wooden furniture give the whole place the feeling of a Scandinavian ski lodge, but with more cake. That ambiance is, of course, helped by the towering blond Norwegian that owns the place with his equally foreign wife. The two of them are wide smiles and toned muscles and sun-kissed skin that speaks of youths running over fields and fjords and other things Skye can’t even imagine. 

Thor is one of those people that everybody knows. He gives discounts to the police force, so Phil always stops for his morning coffee and bagel, he plays football on Saturdays with Steve and Clint (Skye’s pretty sure they met through Darcy, but she hasn’t heard the whole story. Something about Darcy’s friend Jane hitting him with her car?) Peggy says his bakery is the only place in an hundred mile radius that she can get scones that taste as scones should, and it’s laid back enough that Natasha can take the Barton kids without worrying about being a disruption. That, and she takes yoga and Krav Maga classes with Thor’s wife, Sif. 

Skye and Tripp like it because when they get to the counter with their cupcakes chosen and their pops in hand, there always seems to be some special kind of ‘discount’ going on. That only pertains to the two of them. Funny.

“My friends,” Thor smiles, ushering them to the corner table that is their usual bolthole, throwing a tea towel over his broad, apron-wearing shoulder. “You appear to be making battle plans. Can I be of assistance?” 

Trip looks at Skye with raised eyebrows; it’s her plan, her secret if she wants it to be, but she nods at him in reply. They can trust Thor. “It’s Fathers’ Day coming up next week. And I want to get something special for Phil.”

“A kind gesture,” Thor agrees. “So why do you look unhappy?”

Speaking around a mouthful of apple strudel cupcake, Trip shakes his head. “Because her kind gesture is a hundred dollars,” he explains. “And between the two of us we had just enough for these cakes.”

Thor seems to be considering this seriously, which is something Skye has always liked about him – he never belittles their problems just because they’re kids. “We need a wiser mind than mine,” he says finally, and leaves their table for a moment before coming back with his wife. Her cheek is streaked with flour, but she looks serious. 

“My husband tells me you are trying to raise money for a gift?” she asks, her voice low but soft, and she sinks down into the empty chair across from Skye, Thor’s hands coming to rest on her shoulders almost absentmindedly. “For Detective Coulson?” 

Skye nods her head. “It’s our first Fathers’ Day. I want to get him something special.” 

Sif leans on her elbows, and looks at Skye carefully. “You understand anything you gift him will be special to him, because it is from you? That value is not important?”

Skye licks at the frosting on her cupcake, the cinnamon warming her tongue. “I know. But this would be perfect for him whether it was five dollars or five hundred. He’ll just…he’ll really like it. I want to get it.”

Nodding her head in understanding, Sif leans back into her husband’s touch, so her head rests against his chest. They speak briefly in Norwegian, giving Skye and Trip both time to eat more of their cakes, and then turn back to the children. 

“My brother and I once raised six hundred Krone to replace a window we broke in my father’s study. We did many odd jobs for people around the city. Painted rooms, carried parcels, even built my mother a laughable bird table that stands in her garden to this day.”

Something in his words makes Sif laugh, and she tips her head up to look at the standing man. “I believe I paid you twenty krone to stop pulling my hair and following me around,” she reminds him with a look in her eye that makes Skye and Tripp share look of wide eyes and wrinkled-noses. 

Thor’s reply – whatever it is – is in Norwegian, and makes Sif laugh softly and plant a kiss at the corner of his mouth. Skye is saved from fake retching by Sif’s swift words of good luck and disappearance back into the kitchen. The bakery does not stop running simply because she has a dilemma, and there are pastries to glaze.

“There is your plan,” Thor says with a nod and a clap of his hands, broad and loud as thunder. “There is always work to be done if you go looking for it.”

*

Rooting around her room, in every purse and pocket she owns, Skye scrapes every penny, nickel and dime she can find and drops them into a washed out pickle jar. Her starting total is $5.37, which is not exactly inspiring. 

Tripp has to have dinner with his grandparents that evening, and then do his chores around the house, so she sits at her desk alone, making a list of all the people she can ask for work, and all the jobs she thinks she might be able to do. Then, one by one, she attacks.

She washes May's car, even the wheel wells, with a bowl of sudsy water and a hose. She scrubs the windows until they sparkle and vacuums every inch of the inside. She throws out no less than six empty coffee cups - testament to May's one vice - and even finds a sweater she thought she'd lost in the spring. May inspects it with the eye of a drill sergeant, and pronounces it a good job - definitely worth the five dollars they had negotiated as price.

On Tuesday, Skye carries groceries back from the store for Tripp's grandmother, a job the boy in question normally does himself, but he's oddly absent. Still, she accepts the two dollars that Peggy presses upon her, even though it makes her stomach niggle slightly with guilt. She's really not sure how she feels about taking money from the older woman, but Peggy knows what she's saving for, and insists. Returning home, Skye puts the money safely in her pickle jar, and stashes it back under the bed. 

Wednesday afternoon she watches the Barton kids while Natasha naps on the sofa next door. It mainly means stopping Katya from putting things her mouth and fetching Alexander more juice when he asks for it. At first Skye isn't sure why Natasha is in such need of an afternoon nap until the older woman wakes up looking pale, and races to puke just as Clint walks in the door from work. His expression is caught between sympathetic and smug, and makes Skye face palm. Heaven help them wanting three kids under five in the house, but she accepts the ten dollars Clint presses into her palm as his wife curses him out through the bathroom door. Skye pretends she can't hear the words and skips out with a sticky wave from Alex.

She pulls weeds out of old man Lee's back yard - a task that has her using up her whole vocabulary of curses, including the new ones she's learned from Natasha - and gets a thorn in her thumb that has her scrunching up her face as she pulls it out with her teeth. She skips home long enough to wrap a rainbow bandaid around the wound, and then returns to the garden with vigour. He pays her in silver change, but it's enough to make her pockets jingle heavily, so she thanks him profusely, and eats one of his homemade lemon bars, even though they're tart enough to make her lips pucker.

Thursday she returns Ms Hand's library books, because the woman herself is away with work, as she often is. Tripp’s convinced that she's a spy, but having been in her house, Skye's pretty sure she's just the HR consultant she claims to be. Still, she's tempted to try opening the desk drawers, just to see what she finds, but Victoria has left the library books on the stoop, so she doesn't get the chance. 

Steve and Darcy claim they don't have any errands that need doing – the house is new and well maintained, and Steve's a neat freak - but Bucky hisses to her from the spare room where he's still convalescing. The stump where his arm used to be kind of freaks her out, but he’s a not as pale and skinny as the first time she saw him, and he’s even had a haircut. Speaking in a low whisper, he slips her a list of snacks that he says he'll pay her twenty bucks to acquire. Steve still has him firmly on the hospital diet, he explains, and he'd give his other arm for a bag of Doritos. Skye's not sure he should be breaking the rules - she knows that Bucky got really hurt in Iraq, and she's sure if Steve's making him eat things it's probably for a good reason - but then she catches Darcy's eye. The older girl gives her a wink and a subtle nod, and so Skye agrees, promising it'll just be her and Bucky's secret. When she gets back, she sneaks the contraband in the back window, and Bucky groans with pleasure around a Snickers bar and hands her the twenty he promised. 

On the way back around the yard, Darcy catches her, and hands her another twenty. "It helps him feel independent, that he got something over on Steve. Like he can do things without help. So thanks, kid."

She bikes to the florist for Clint with strict instructions to come back with gerber daisies, as bright a colour as she can find. She has to carry them in her basket, and can barely see over the top, but he gives her forty dollars to buy them and tells her to keep the change, so she doesn't mind the inconvenience. Also, seeing the way Natasha's eyes light up when Skye appears on the doorstep with them wrapped up in wax paper and says she's acting as delivery girl for Clint, it seems totally worth it. It freaks her out a little to see Natasha cry, but they're obviously happy tears, and it only takes a moment for Clint appears in the hallway in his socks and a little grin on his face, and take her in his arms. As Skye jumps down from their front porch the two are rocking back and forth - as though dancing to their own silence music - and both are laughing, even as Clint wipes the tears from Natasha's eyes with the pad of his thumb. 

Friday evening, Darcy goes out for weekly drinks with her college friend Jane, leaving Steve and Bucky in the house on their own. From her place on the front porch, Skye watches as the delivery man hands over two large pizza to Steve, along with a six pack of sodas and an icy tub of ice cream. 

"Not sure that's in Bucky's diet plan!" Skye yells across the street. "Does Darcy know you're breaking the rules?"

Cursing, Steve puts the junk food down on the front step and waves her over. Skye skips across the street with a grin, especially as she sees Steve going for his back pocket. "Look, kid, it's guys' night, right? And it's good for him to have a break from the hospital crap. Makes everything feel a bit more normal. You won't tell, right?"

Skye cocks her head to the side, braids falling over her shoulder. She rubs at her chin, as though considering his words. "Well, I'm still ten dollars short of Phil's Father's Day present. That might help me forget what I've seen..."

She thinks he might get mad, but instead Steve just throws his head back and laughs. Reaching out, he ruffles her hair. "Punk," he grins affectionately, and holds a crisp ten out. 

She takes it with glee, she shakes his hand firmly. "Thank you," she smiles, honest and bright and so excited. "I promise not a word. Enjoy your pizza. And your guys' night. Enjoy everything!"

Steve's just picked up the pizzas, and Skye folding the money into her jeans pocket, when he looks back over his shoulder. "Hey little punk, where's your partner in crime this week? I don't think I've ever seen you two apart so much."

The words stop her. Having been so busy doing her odd jobs, counting her money and her coins, Skye's barely had time to register Tripp's absence from her side. Her brow furrows. "I don't know," is her honest answer. Then realising she should know, she heads off back across the street with a wave of her hand. "Thanks Steve!"

Running up the stairs, not even taking the time to remove her sneakers, she dumps the last bill in the washed out pickle jar before throwing herself on her bed. Picking up the walkie-talkie from under her pillow she presses the button down until she hears a crackle.

(It had barely taken three weeks before Tripp had handed over to her one of his prized possessions, a real army walkie-talkie, inherited from his grandfather, and one half of a pair. He’d made her swear up and down - pinkie swear and spit on it and every other promise he could think of - to look after it, because he’d sworn to his grandfather he’d take good care of them.)

"Tripp? You there?"

She looks out her window, hoping to see him through the drapes, but his own curtains are pulled shut, which is unusual for the time of day. Maybe he's sick? She suddenly is hit by a wave of guilt that she's been so busy this week she hasn't even considered him, which is ridiculous. Normally he would be right by her side, pulling weeds and thorns, and she can't believe he missed a chance to snoop around Victoria Hand's house for clues. 

Thoughts reeling, she's just about to head over to his house - potential sickness be damned - when the radio in her hand crackles to life.

"Hey Skye."

Straight away she knows something is up. Tripp is the epitome of sunshine - his face, his personality, and always his voice. Now he sounds like a grey day with a heavy chance of rain. "What's wrong?" she asks, no preamble, because Skye doesn't do preamble, and besides, her and Tripp don't have secrets. They're buddies, besties, partners-in-crime.

She knows Tripp knows that too, because his sigh is deep and long. "Skye -" he starts, and she knows she's about to be brushed off, so she pre-empts him with a meaningful "Tripp..."

There's a pause, and then finally, "I miss my Dad."

It hits her like a punch to the stomach. She’s been so busy running around, being so incredibly happy that after an entire life of not having anyone to make cards or buy gifts for that she finally has someone, she’d completely forgotten what this day would mean for her best friend. A reminder that once he did have someone, and that someone was gone now, and would never come back. Guilt sinks hotly into her stomach and curdles there.

For a moment she holds the radio in her hand, trying to think of something to say, but the words won’t come. Tossing it aside, she stares at the ceiling for a long beat, before rolling off the bed. Heading back down the stairs, she pulls open the front door, and is across the grass between their two houses in an instant. She knows Peggy and Gabe don’t lock their front door when they’re home, and also that she’s welcome inside at any time, and she walks in without hesitation. Up the stairs, she doesn’t even bother knocking on his bedroom door before opening it.

She smaller than him by a long way, but crawling up next to him on his bed, her arms go around his shoulders and hold tight. He struggles for a split second, and then seems to melt against her. His cries are silent, she only knows about them from the wetness on her shoulder.

*

When Father’s Day rolls around, Phil is thrilled with the framed photograph of the two of them at the fair – perfect for his desk at the office - and the red, white and blue striped socks that Skye presents him with. He pulls them on immediately, wiggling his toes, and drags her in for a large hug. She goes, a little embarrassed but mostly pleased, and it warms her heart to feel him press a kiss to the top of her head as he whispers his thanks into her hair.

She’s in the kitchen – ostensibly bringing him more coffee because he shouldn’t have to get it himself today – when she feels rather than hears May enter the room. 

“What happened to the comic?” she asks simply, watching the young girl pour carefully from the coffee pot into Phil’s favourite mug – the one with grumpy cat on the front; for some reason it always made him laugh. 

She hadn’t told May about the comic, not explicitly, but she’s not surprised to find the older woman knows. When she first arrived, that would have prickled at her, the inability to have any secrets, but now she recognises May’s knowledge for what it is – someone who was backing her up, supporting her, even without her knowing.

Stepping down from the wooden stool, Skye carefully slides the coffee pot back into place, and blows on the mug until it is cool enough to handle. Her shoulders are square when she turns to face May, as though she isn’t sure how her answer will be received. “Needed the money for something else,” she explains, but doesn’t, and waits for the inevitable questioning.

Of course, being May, the questioning doesn’t come. Instead, she reaches over and cups Skye’s cheek. “Gabe told me what you did,” she says, sweeping her thumb against the young girl’s soft skin. “You’re a good friend.” 

*

They bike out there together, both baskets filled to the brim. Where there would normally be chatter and banter and teasing, they are quiet, contemplative. On arriving, they park their bikes by a large copper beech, leaning them against its massive trunk, and, with their cargo safely in their arms, wend their way through the standing stones.

She’s never been here with him before. She knows he comes at different times of the year with his grandparents, but it’s different just being the two of them. Reaching their destination, they kneel down next to the marble block, and lay their burdens down. 

Sergeant Antoine Triplett Snr  
1979 – 2011  
Beloved father, son, and friend. 

Tripp traces the gold lettering, and Skye, wanting to give him a moment, clears the detritus of old flowers and plants, carrying them away to the trashcan at the side of the cemetery. Then, once everything is clear, she starts spreading dirt around, digging small holes with her trowel, and planting the flowers they’d picked. After a few moments, Tripp joins her, and they work in silent tandem until the whole grave is a riot of colour. 

“They lady in the florists said they should grow back every year,” she tells him, somewhat needlessly as they get to their feet - he had been in the shop with her, had heard the words as well as she had. She brushes her hair back from her face with her fingers, not even caring that it leaves dirt streaked across her forehead. “So it’s always gonna have flowers now.” 

Tripp nods, and stares for a long time at their handiwork. Small purple and pink blossoms butt against bright yellows and reds, and white petalled blooms pop up throughout the space. There’s no organisation, no coordination, just a burst of colour and life.

“Thank you for helping me do this,” he tells her, reaching out to hold her hand, even though they are both covered in mud. 

She squeezes his fingers. “You don’t have to say thank you.”

“What should I say then?”

Cocking her head, she looks between his face – finally curving again with the trace of a smile – and the bright blooming flowers before them. Lastly, she looks at the name carved in marble, gilded in gold. “How about Happy Father’s Day?” 

*


End file.
